Barbara Lawlor, Nederland.   Ron Mitchell’s great grandmother was a pioneer, heading west in a covered wagon, bringing with her a love of flowers, of immense fancy, eye-catching beauties of all colors, her favorite being the iris. Eudora Covey filled her yard with these flowers and when it was time, when they were all just nearing their peak, she would cut them into boisterous bouquets to give to hospital patients.

Eudora became well known for her joyful creations, her generosity for people in distress.

When her grandson Ron was six years old, Eudora passed away, and steeped deep in his memory is the churchyard and the streets leading to the church filled with flowers, placed there in honor of her good works.

“The minister at the funeral didn’t know much about her,” says Ron, remembering that day. “And included in his sermon was an admonishment that the flowers should have been left growing for the living to enjoy. I remember my mom crying when he said those words because he didn’t understand about the flowers.”

Ron Mitchell is dedicating his flower/hops park to Eudora and right now, this week, has been and will be for a while, the peak of color. It was constructed in her memory for Nederland residents and visitors to enjoy and participate in. The park features dahlias which are a bushy, tuberous, herbaceous perennial plant native to Mexico, blooming from mid-summer to first frost. They sprout from small, tubers planted in the spring, after he tubers have been stored over the winter. A dahlia expresses sentiments of dignity and elegance and is the symbol of a commitment and bond that lasts forever.

You will not find 50 shades of gray. There are Ayer’s Glory, Cafe Au Lait, GG’s Kalinda, Lemon Peel, White Russian, Hollyhill Monet, Black Spider, amazingly brilliant, bringing pedestrians and drivers to stop in the street and then find a place to park to get a closer view of the giant flowers.

Ron considers himself an amateur botanist/horticulturist/flower lover. In 2011, he began his quest to fill Ned with flowers, actually initiating his hop wall on the Hop Inn.

“These hops were there since the 1800s and no one ever took care of them. When the micro brews flourished in town, we grew the hop vines up the side of the building. But I missed flowers. In 2002, Home Depot had a sale on sprouted dahlias that needed to be planted. I purchased 30 of them and planted them in the hop space against the hostel. They did well.”

In the fall, Ron dug up the tubers which produced at least six new ones to be replanted in the spring. He and his crew of gardeners got good at the dahlia reproducing. Three years ago, when Ron built the parking lot park along Boulder Creek on First Street, he looked at the space and thought outside the normal parking lot ambience.

“I wanted to create an interesting space, to entice people to want to park their cars there, to get out and look around at where they were, liven it up.”

He installed wraparound planters and this past summer put in a structure to hold his hop grow. Ron explains the structure as a vertical agriculture experiment, with hop vines growing up one side and grape vines growing up the other. The scaffold will hold hundreds of pounds of fruit and withstand winter winds. Clematis vines will be twined among the hops.

Local barn swallows will build nests and quail are already prevalent among the trellis.

Ron says the top soil in the long planter box was mined from nearby ravines of 20 feet deep with virgin soil thousands of years old. A sign warns visitors that the scaffolding is not a recreational jungle gym or climbing wall and it is okay to scold anyone trying to use it as such.

The projected height of the wall is up to 20 feet by next year. The hops will be harvested by private individuals and after the first frost, Ron will dig up the dahlia plants and offer them to residents who will keep one tuber and return the six offspring in the spring. It takes about six people to plant and maintain the garden.

“Bigger and better next year,” says Ron, who took his dahlias to the Colorado Dahlia Flower Society Show, where eight of his flowers came in first place in the amateur competition. He emphasizes amateur, saying the professional category flowers are unbelievable in size and for Colorado.

As Ron bends over the flowers, trimming them, his large straw hat shading his face, he greets people who are gathering on First Street, whipping out their cameras. Other First Street shops have added the dahlias to their landscaping, as well as areas along the highway.

“I want them everywhere in town; I want them to cross-pollinate, you never know what you will get. I would love to create a blue dahlia, although peach is my favorite.”

“I would also like to have a dahlia festival next year. Give away prizes to kids, have them for weddings. My daughter had a bouquet of dahlias when she was married. This is an escape into the world of beauty.”

Ron’s dahlias are in full bloom, some already on their way out and many on their way in. See them before the first frost and then come get some to spend the winter in your house.

(Originally published in the September 20, 2018, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)